Justina Robson
Justina Robson lives in Leeds in Yorkshire, UK.
She began writing as a child in the 70s.
Her short fiction has appeared in various magazines in the UK and the USA.
Her first novel, Silver Screen, published in 1999,
was nominated for the Arthur C Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Association Best Novel Award.
Her second novel, Mappa Mundi, won the amazon.co.uk Writer's Bursary.

AI-psychologist Anjuli O'Connel's friends really give her a hard time: the obsessed genius Roy Croft is suddenly lying dead in
his bedroom, leaving her with cryptic clues obviously designed to make his dreams of machine evolution come true. Just before
his death, he filed against OptiNet, the company employing him and Anjuli, at the World Court of Human Rights. His case is
about granting legal subject status to the artificial intelligence
901 -- an entity attached to Anjuli by more than just a professional relationship. Suddenly, Anjuli finds herself at the
clashing point of opposing interests: while OptiNet is determined to prevent 901's emancipation, radical proponents of
machine rights threaten Anjuli with death in case she decides in favour of her company and against 901.
Moreover, despite his death, Roy still seems to manipulate Anjuli's every move...

Finally, Justina Robson's first novel has been published in America. It's a little mystery why it took so long: Silver
Screen doesn't have to hide behind her later novels Mappa Mundi and Natural History. In fact,
it's a much more accessible novel than those two. That's mainly because Robson limits herself to one central
character. As one has come to expect from Robson, she depicts Anjuli by no means as a typical SF-heroine: an
academic with a slight eating disorder, prone to laconic comments on her own self-consciousness. It's a main
character that could be taken out of the pages of an accomplished textbook on writing novels: sympathetic despite
all of her quirks and growing with the challenges the story makes her face. That alone makes Silver Screen
a joy to read -- so much so that one might forget that it's also a high-concept SF-Novel.

Admittedly, in terms of SF-concepts, Silver Screen doesn't offer anything wholly new. What we get in terms of
concept is a downright systematic treatise on machine evolution. Robson confronts several models of machine
evolution -- artificial computer intelligence, physical merging of human and machine, robotics and emerging
consciousness in the global data stream -- with each other and links them to different patterns of experiencing
reality. While robotics and cyborg technology are associated with models of animal and instinctive behaviour, the
AI 901 at once appears as the most familiar and the most mysterious form of machine evolution: a complex psyche,
as opaque as any human being. And then there's the Shoal, the emergent data stream intelligence, in which Roy
projects his hopes for a kind of immortality. Occasionally, some elements in this arrangement seem a little forced,
their purpose being more to complete the thematic structure and less to contribute to the plot. It's as if Robson
first had to recapitulate some well-known SF-concepts in Silver Screen to set sail for more distant shores in her
following novels. Nevertheless, with Robson applying her distinct outlook to these concepts, Silver Screen
becomes a highly innovative novel. While she closely keeps her SF-eye on machine evolution as a wondrous phenomenon
in itself, she also takes into account the political and ideological conflicts this phenomenon arouses. There may
be a heap of novels on AI -- but there are probably only few where a lawsuit about their status as legal subjects
plays a vital role.

Robson's knowledge of the long tradition of her topics becomes obvious by numerous references to classics of
the genre -- for example, it's certainly not a coincidence that Roy resembles a "turned around" version of
another character of the same name from one of the best-known SF films. And despite the firm middle-brow quality
of Robson's literary style, Silver Screen commits itself strongly to the thriller side of the genre: especially
towards the end the novel is picking up more and more speed, and the inconspicuous Anjuli gets her chance to
prove herself a heroine who's not willing to let herself be pushed around any longer. Stylistically sound and
permeated with dry humour, Robson's first novel is an impressive achievement which has been rightfully nominated
for the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick awards.

Jakob writes and translates reviews, essays and short stories, most of them for the German magazine
Alien Contact (www.alien-contact.de) and its publishing house Shayol. That's in his spare time,
which luckily still makes up the bulk of his days.